Disconnect leads to emotional overwhelm

The more overwhelmed and anxious you become in social situations or when facing something new or an unexpected change of plans, the more you can trust that your thinking gets stuck in worst-case-scenario land. The emotional disconnect leads to emotional overwhelm.

This stuck thinking leads you to feel immediately overwhelmed at the thought of anything new or unexpected and makes life much harder than it needs to be. Disconnect leads to emotional overwhelm when you have learned, over time, to assume the worst and to automatically shut down to what is actually happening in the moment. And hey, if you’re telling yourself you’re doomed, why wouldn’t you press the shut down button?

And if, without even realizing it, you have lived your life disconnected from your feelings for the most part, you are very likely wondering what the value of being connected to them would be.

In fact, your Drill Sgt. may be saying something such as “Feelings make you weak.” “Other people won’t respect you if you let your feelings show.” “You’re just a cry baby if you can’t control your feelings.”

Check in with yourself for a moment and ask where in the past you may have either heard these very words spoken, or if you witnessed significant people in your life modeling the behaviour of hiding, discounting, or denying their feelings.

Have you ever had the experience of suddenly feeling totally overwhelmed?

You are certain you are overreacting because you don’t know where all this emotion came from, and maybe others around you aren’t reacting as strongly or aren’t so demonstrative.

In addition to feeling emotional, you are compounding your pain by judging and berating yourself for this feeling.

You are certain there is nothing going on in your life to justify your strong reaction in that moment.

Does this experience sound familiar?

Well, hundreds of millions of people worldwide struggle with this one. It’s all about confused thinking and confused stress responses. It’s the cause of binging, eating disorders, addictions and every other harmful coping strategy humans engage in.